A Vision of the Last Judgement

Last updated May 02, 2024

A Vision of the Last Judgement is a painting by William Blake that was designed in 1808 before becoming a lost artwork. The painting was to be shown in an 1810 exhibition with a detailed analysis added to a second edition of his Descriptive Catalogue . This plan was dropped after the exhibition was cancelled, and the painting disappeared. Blake's notes for the Descriptive Catalogue describe various aspects of the work in a detailed manner, which allow the aspects of the painting to be known. Additionally, earlier designs that reveal similar Blake depiction of the Last Judgement have survived, and these date back to an 1805 precursor design created for Robert Blair's The Grave. In addition to Blake's notes on the painting, a letter written to Ozias Humphrey provides a description of the various images within an earlier design of the Last Judgement.

Origins

Blake claimed to have seen visions throughout his life, and he claimed that they were a common aspect of life. His understanding of these events was, as he explained, similar to the experiences of biblical prophets. In the commentary to A Vision of the Last Judgement, Blake claimed that the image originated in a particular vision he experienced that allowed him to see the host of Heaven praising God. The actual design of A Vision of the Last Judgement was created in 1808 as an expansion of his 1805 work The Day of Judgement. Blake created this work to be used in Blair's The Grave , which was published 1808.^[1]

The seven feet by five-foot painting was to be shown in an 1810 exhibit of Blake's work, but the exhibit was cancelled after problems resulting from an 1809 exhibit of his works. The actual painting was lost, but earlier versions of the work survived.^[2] These include an 1808 watercolour version made for Elizabeth Ilive, wife of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, that was displayed at their Petworth House. A similar illustration in pencil and ink became part of the Rosenwald Collection.^[2] Other editions included watercolours made for Thomas Butts in 1806, 1807, and 1809, one for John Flaxman in 1806 (lost), and an 1809 unsold version in tempera. These are in addition to The Day of Judgement made for Blair's The Grave.^[3]

The painting was to be discussed in Blake's Descriptive Catalogue, a work that, in 1809, described Blake's feelings about various painters and poets in addition to descriptions of his own works and their various meanings. Blake planned to create another edition for the 1810 collection but the plan was stopped after the exhibition was cancelled. Notes for what Blake planned to write for the works A Vision of the Last Judgement and Public Address survived. The notes were discovered by William Michael Rossetti and first mentioned in a letter to Horace Scudder on 27 November 1864. Rossetti transcribed the notes for Alexander Gilchrist's The Life of William Blake, an early biography on Blake. One piece of the work was missing: part of page 71 was sent by Rossetti to Scudder.^[4] Blake discussed the 1808 watercolour sold to Ilives in two works, a poem, "The Caverns of the Grave Ive Seen", written for Ilives provided by Blake with her design. and a description of Ilives's design for Humphry in January 1808.^[5]

Painting

The description provided by Blake to Humphrey explains that the work depicts the resurrection. The top of the work depicts Christ on the Throne of Judgement with Heaven opened up across the painting. Behind Christ are the heads of infants which represent creation coming from Jesus. Christ is surrounded by the four Zoas and seven angels that have vials filled with God's wrath. An image of a tabernacle with a cross inside is depicted above Christ. An image of baptism is to Christ's right and the Last Supper is to Christ's left with both representing eternal life. Further to Christ's right is the resurrection of the just and to the left is the resurrection and subsequent fall of the wicked. Adam and Eve are below Christ, and Abraham and Moses are nearby. Below Moses is Satan wrapped by the Serpent and in the centre is the book of death. At the top is the book of life, and the Christian Church is the figure of a woman on top of the moon.^[5]

Blake, in his notes to A Vision of the Last Judgement, describes how his design is to work: "If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his Imagination approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contemplative Thought [...] then would he arise from his Grave".^[6] He relies on the word representation frequently in the work, and he tries to represent action in a visible manner that distances his depiction of the apocalypse from a traditional version that disguises the various components of an apocalyptic vision. To Blake, he must create an image of the Last Judgement, then represent the image, and then describe with a written gloss of the work. This creates a layer of representation that separates the audience from the apocalyptic experience, which undermines the concept of apocalypse as both mysterious and directly experienced.^[7]

In discussing the nature of time, Blake wrote in his notes: "The Greeks represented Chronos or Time as a very Aged Man; this is Fable, but the Real Vision of Time is in Eternal Youth. I have, however, somewhat accommodated my Figure of Time to the common opinion, as I myself am also infected with it & my Visions also infected, as I see Time Aged, alas, too much so."^[8]

Themes

Blake based his portrayal of the apocalypse on his belief that God's love allowed for a personal apocalypse as part of the human experience.^[9] In the notes to the work, he claimed that "whenever any Individual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth a Last Judgement passes upon that Individual".^[10] This idea is connected to views of David Hartley of the "pure disinterested love of God", and appears in other works by Blake, including his Jerusalem .^[11] Also, Blake's Milton describes the process that an individual goes through during an apocalypse, which includes having to confront their errors and their flaws. There is no peace during the struggle, as it involves a direct interaction between contrary views that would eventually establish the new state.^[12]

On the details in the painting, Blake claimed that each component had a specific meaning that provides an allegory-like dimension to the work. Blake dismissed the idea of using allegory within his works except, as he wrote in a letter to Butts, 6 July 1803,^[13] "Allegory Address'd to the intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from the Corporeal Understanding, is My Definition of the Most Sublime Poetry".^[14]

Blake's philosophical interpretation of time is similar to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's depiction of the relationship between time and the state of limbo within his poem "Limbo". Both claim that their understanding of time is connected to the common, contemporary view, but they alter their perspective of time within their works to that of an older person. The figure of time appears in other works by Blake, including as the figure Los and in the illustration Blake made for Edward Young's Night Thoughts .^[15]

Notes

↑ Bentley 2003 pp. 20, 316
1 2 Johnson and Grant 1979 pp. 408–409
↑ Bentley 2003 Plate 109
↑ Damon 1988 pp. 102–103, 437
1 2 Bentley 2003 pp. 316–317
↑ Goldsmith 1993 qtd p. 151
↑ Goldsmith 1993 p. 152
↑ Stevenson 1996 qtd. p. 83
↑ Mee 2005 p. 290
↑ Mee 2005 qtd. p. 290
↑ Mee 2005 pp. 289–290
↑ Behrendt 1983 p. 23
↑ Johnson and Grant 1979 p. 409
↑ Johnson and Grant 1979 qtd. p. 409
↑ Stevenson 1996 pp. 82–83

Related Research Articles

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his "prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself".

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti inspired the next generation of artists and writers, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in particular. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bell Scott</span> British artist (1811–1890)

William Bell Scott (1811–1890) was a Scottish artist in oils and watercolour and occasionally printmaking. He was also a poet and art teacher, and his posthumously published reminiscences give a chatty and often vivid picture of life in the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites; he was especially close to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. After growing up in Edinburgh, he moved to London, and from 1843 to 1864 was principal of the government School of Art in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he added industrial subjects to his repertoire of landscapes and history painting. He was one of the first British artists to extensively depict the processes of the Industrial Revolution. He returned to London, working for the Science and Art Department until 1885.

In the mythological writings of William Blake, Los is the fallen form of Urthona, one of the four Zoas, and the embodiment of human creativity and inspiration. He is referred to as the "eternal prophet" and creates the visionary city of Golgonooza. Los is regularly described as a smith, beating with his hammer on a forge, which is metaphorically connected to the beating of the human heart. The bellows of his forge are the human lungs. Los's emanation, Enitharmon, represents spiritual beauty and embodies pity, but at the same time creates the spatial aspect of the fallen world, weaving bodies for men and creating sexual strife through her insistence upon chastity. In the Book of Urizen (1794), Los and Enitharmon have a child, Orc, who is the embodiment of the spirit of revolution. The name Los is, by common critical acceptance, an anagram of Sol, the Latin word for "sun". Los is also the plural form of El, an ancient Hebrew deity. Such innovations are common in many of Blake's prophetic poems.

Christ in Majesty or Christ in Glory is the Western Christian image of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world, always seen frontally in the centre of the composition, and often flanked by other sacred figures, whose membership changes over time and according to the context. The image develops from Early Christian art, as a depiction of the Heavenly throne as described in 1 Enoch, Daniel 7, and The Apocalypse of John. In the Byzantine world, the image developed slightly differently into the half-length Christ Pantocrator, "Christ, Ruler of All", a usually unaccompanied figure, and the Deesis, where a full-length enthroned Christ is entreated by Mary and St. John the Baptist, and often other figures. In the West, the evolving composition remains very consistent within each period until the Renaissance, and then remains important until the end of the Baroque, in which the image is ordinarily transported to the sky.

Europe a Prophecy is a 1794 prophetic book by the British poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on 18 plates, and survives in just nine known copies. It followed America a Prophecy of 1793.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederic Shields</span> English painter

Frederic James Shields was a British artist, illustrator, and designer closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown.

William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job primarily refers to a series of twenty-two engraved prints by Blake illustrating the biblical Book of Job. It also refers to two earlier sets of watercolours by Blake on the same subject. The engraved Illustrations are considered to be Blake's greatest masterpieces in the medium of engraving, and were also a rare commercial and critical success for Blake.

Vala, or The Four Zoas is one of the uncompleted prophetic books by the English poet William Blake, begun in 1797. The eponymous main characters of the book are the Four Zoas, who were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology. It consists of nine books, referred to as "nights". These outline the interactions of the Zoas, their fallen forms and their Emanations. Blake intended the book to be a summation of his mythic universe but, dissatisfied, he abandoned the effort in 1807, leaving the poem in a rough draft and its engraving unfinished. The text of the poem was first published, with only a small portion of the accompanying illustrations, in 1893, by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and his collaborator, the English writer and poet Edwin John Ellis, in their three-volume book The Works of William Blake.

America a Prophecy is a 1793 prophetic book by the English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's Continental prophecies.

The Song of Los is one of William Blake's epic poems, known as prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers. The book provides a historical context for The Book of Urizen, The Book of Ahania, and The Book of Los, and also ties those more obscure works to The Continental Prophecies, "Europe" and "America". The second section consists of Los urging revolution.

Nebuchadnezzar is a colour monotype print with additions in ink and watercolour portraying the Old Testament Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II by the English poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake. Taken from the Book of Daniel, the legend of Nebuchadnezzar tells of a ruler who through hubris lost his mind and was reduced to animalistic madness and eating "grass as oxen".

The Ghost of a Flea is a miniature painting by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake, held in the Tate Gallery, London. Measuring only 8.42 by 6.3 inches, it is executed in a tempera mixture with gold, on a mahogany-type tropical hardwood panel. It was completed between 1819 and 1820, as part of a series depicting "Visionary Heads" commissioned by the watercolourist and astrologist John Varley (1778–1842). Fantastic, spiritual art was popular in Britain from around 1770 to 1830, and during this time Blake often worked on unearthly, supernatural panels to amuse and amaze his friends.

William Blakes illustrations of <i>On the Morning of Christs Nativity</i> Illustrations of On the Morning of Christs Nativity by William Blake

William Blake drew and painted illustrations for John Milton's nativity ode On the Morning of Christ's Nativity between 1803 and 1815. A total of 16 illustrations are extant: two sets of six watercolours each, and an additional four drawings in pencil.

The Book of Los is a 1795 prophetic book by the English poet and painter William Blake. It exists in only one copy, now held by The British Museum. The book is related to the Book of Urizen and to the Continental prophecies; it is essentially a retelling of Urizen from the point of view of Los. The book has been described as a rewriting of the ancient myth of creation that equates fall with the loss of spiritual vision brought about by selfhood.

Robert Hunt was an English writer. His infamous reviews of the works of William Blake are amongst the earliest criticism of the poet and painter.

"The Grave" is a blank verse poem by the Scottish poet Robert Blair. It is the work for which he is primarily renowned. According to Blair, in a letter he wrote to Philip Doddridge, the greater part of the poem was composed before he became a minister. Edinburgh editor and publisher John Johnstone stated that it was composed whilst Blair was still a student, although "probably corrected and amplified by his more matured judgement." The poem, 767 lines long, is an exemplar of what became known as the school of graveyard poetry.

The Notebook of William Blake was used by William Blake as a commonplace book from c. 1787 to 1818.

Cross in the Mountains, also known as the Tetschen Altar, is an oil painting by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich designed as an altarpiece. Among Friedrich's first major works, the 1808 painting marked an important break with the conventions of landscape painting by including Christian iconography. In the hierarchy of genres, religious (history) painting was considered the highest genre of art; Friedrich's use of landscape to evoke a spiritual message was thus controversial, causing debate between proponents of neoclassical ideals and the new German Romanticism of Friedrich and his peers.

Venus Verticordia (1864–1868) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is a semi-nude depiction of the goddess Venus, portrayed as a young woman with a golden halo and flowing auburn hair, surrounded by pink flowers in a dark, lush green garden. Her left breast is visible, while the right is obscured by the golden apple she holds in her left hand. In her right hand she holds an arrow, the point directed towards her own heart, and on which rests a small yellow butterfly. Other similar butterflies ring the halo surrounding her head, and another sits on top of the apple she holds.

References

Behrendt, Stephen. The Moment of Explosion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1983.
Bentley, G. E. The Stranger from Paradise. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
Damon, S. Foster. A Blake Dictionary. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1988.
Goldsmith, Steven. Unbuilding Jerusalem. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1993.
Johnson, Mary and Grant, John (eds). Blake's Poetry and Designs. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Mee, Jon. Romanticism, Enthusiasm, and Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Stevenson, Warren. Romanticism and the Androgynous Sublime. London: Associated University Presses, 1996.